the.com/zika
Zika often causes mild symptoms in adults but can severely harm fetal brain development during pregnancy.
means Zika is a mosquito-borne virus, usually causing mild or no symptoms in adults, that can cause severe brain defects (like microcephaly) in babies if their mothers are infected during pregnancy.
from Named for the Zika Forest in Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947 from a rhesus monkey placed there as part of a yellow fever surveillance program. 'Zika' is possibly related to a local word meaning 'overgrown,' describing the forest itself. The virus circulated quietly for decades, known mostly from scattered human cases in Africa and Asia, until a major outbreak in Brazil starting around 2015 revealed its devastating effect on fetal development — a danger no one had connected to it before.
- origin
- named after Uganda's Zika forest, 1947
- stealth mode
- 80 percent of infections show no symptoms
- real danger
- causes microcephaly in developing fetuses
- other route
- spreads sexually, not just by mosquito